Ableton Live: Composition Techniques Pt. 1: Impulse & Envelopes

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Ableton Live: Composition Techniques Pt. 2: Grooves, VSTs & Effects

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Ableton Live: Composition Techniques Pt. 3: Scale, Randomizing & Arrange View

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Mixed in Key is changing the face of the DJ world as we know it. By analyzing your digital music files, Mixed in Key can detect the musical key of each one of your songs, and it actually writes the song’s musical key directly into the audio file, so you can view the musical keys in programs such as iTunes, Traktor, Ableton Live, Serato and more, allowing DJs to sort their playlists by key so you can quickly find tracks that are in harmony with each other. This $58 software can save you a lifetime of sitting in your DJ room with a piano writing all the keys on your record sleeves. You literally run your music collection overnight and the next day you are reborn as a harmonic mixing DJ and will never turn back!

While all of this is a dream come true for some, a lot of people argue about how accurate Mixed In Key really is. There have been studies out there comparing Mixed In Key’s results with musical databases, but the studies were mostly done for rock, Alternative, Pop and Top 40 Songs. What I wanted to see was how accurate Mixed In Key was for Dance Music. I took 200 of my best House, Tech House, Techno, Progressive House and Breaks tracks, and keyed them all one by one manually on a piano. I made a spreadsheet that compared all of my results with Mixed in Keys results.

I was able to gather some very interesting data about how accurate the program really is for the music I play. I double-checked all of the tracks to make sure my results were completely accurate.

If you’d like to see the entire chart with all of my results, you can view the chart here. If you look at the chart you will see that I noted Mixed In Key’s results, as well as my results from using the piano to figure out the key. I also looked up each tracks Genre on Beatport just for fun, and to get genre specific data. Out of all the data I collected here are some interesting facts I discovered based on the 200 Dance Music tracks I tested with.
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Five Facts About Mixed In Key

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Mixed In Key is 86% Accurate for Dance Music. Genre wise, I found that it correctly guessed 85% of my House, Progressive House, and Tech House. Electro House was 86% accurate. It was most accurate for breaks which were 93% Correct. Techno was least accurate out of all of the genres, and was 70% accurate. I was actually expecting a lot less than this based on an old test I did with Mixed In Key 3 (37% accurate for Techno). Big improvement!

Mixed in Key Incorrectly guessed the keys of 14% of my tracks. However I found that out of the tracks that were incorrectly guessed, 59% of those tracks were guessed to be in harmonically compatible keys. Out of the tracks that were incorrectly guessed by mixed in key, 32% were guessed to be in a subdominant or dominant key, which are harmonically compatible with each other (ex. 5A-C Minor was analyzed in M.I.K. as 6A-G Minor). And 11% of the tracks incorrectly analyzed in Mixed in Key were guessed to be in Relative Minor / Major keys (9A-9B), Subdominant / Dominant Major or Minor keys (9B-8A) which are also harmonically compatible.

I found that the program is just as accurate for major and minor keys based on my results. 88% of the tracks in major keys were guessed correctly while 87% of the tracks in minor keys were guessed correctly.

I also found that Mixed In Key correctly analyzed 100% of all of my tracks in A Minor! It guessed 25 out of 25 of my tracks in A Minor correctly. This was great news because A Minor is the most popular key in my music collection. Here is a mix I did entirely in the Key of A Minor. Result: A+ for Mixed In Key!

DJ Endo – Algorhythms in A Minor [Radio Mix] by DJ Endo

Mixed in Key also correctly analyzed every track that was in G Minor, which is my 3^rd most popular key. I’ve found G Minor to be a very funky key. Here is a mix I did entirely in the key of G Minor. Mixed in Key also almost got all of my tracks in F Minor correct as well (94%), which happens to be my second most common key in my track collection:

DJ Endo – Algorhythms in G Minor [Radio Mix] by DJ Endo

Here is a mix I did entirely in the key of F Minor. B Minor and E Minor tracks were also very correctly guessed (92% accurate), and both keys are very popular in my collection as well as F sharp minor (90%):

DJ Endo – Algorhythms in F minor [Radio Mix] by DJ Endo

Here is a Mix I did in the key of F# Minor. The only key I noticed that was incorrectly guessed a lot was D Minor. Out of the 19 tracks in my study that were in D Minor, only 8 were guessed correctly (42%). Even so, when I add up all the results from the most popular keys that I play in, about 93% of the tracks in those keys were correctly guessed in mixed in key.

DJ Endo – Algorhythms in F sharp minor [Radio DJ Set] *Free Download* – WAV by DJ Endo

As you can see by these results Mixed In Key is a serious tool for DJ’s looking to improve their musicality, and is very accurate when analyzing the keys. you don’t have mixed in key yet, you better get it soon or you will get left in the dust!  It will change your DJ life forever.

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Endo is a DJ and product specialist for Native Instruments and lives in Brooklyn. Listen to mixes from him atwww.djendo.com.

Submit now by selecting “New York” at:

www.istandardproducers.com/index.php?t=show_submit

Buy an advance 2-Night ticket and save $5 HERE!

The Balcony @ Webster Hall
125 East 11th Street New York, NY 10003
Start time 8:30 PM
Tuesday, September 7th and Wednesday September 8th, 2010

Dubspot Instructor and Ableton Certified Trainer (not to mention multi-instrumentalist and producer-extraordinaire) DJ Kiva will also host a beat making workshop with Ableton Live September 8th at The Studio @ Webster Hall. In addition to the workshop, there will also be a producer battle that will feature iStandard NYC Finalists Tristate and  Skee N Sol and also Philly Finalists The Incredible Spro and B the Sound Junkie, with performances from Push Montana and Wyld Stylaz.

Check out DJ Kiva’s latest mix for Dubspot Podcast series – performed using Ableton Live.

Dubspot Radio Podcast Ep. 5 DJ Kiva by Dubspot

Wednesday, September 8th at 9pm (setup at 8pm)
The Studio @ Webster Hall
125 East 11th Street
New York, NY 10003

Dubspot Presents: Bridging the Gap Between Digital Production and DJing

Take your electronic music production skills to the next level with Ableton and Serato’s The Bridge – which essentially closes the gap between music production and Djing/performance with an assemblage DJ and production tools built in.  Dubspot is New York City’s premier electronic music training center. Get a first look at The Bridge, in this presentation in which Dubspot instructors will give practical explanation, demonstrate, and answer your questions. The Bridge opens up a new world of opportunities for DJing, remixing, and live performance. Don’t miss this one!

Friday, September 10
6:30 PM
Apple Store SoHo
103 Prince Street
New York City, NY 10012
(212) 226-3126

Ableton & Serato @ NAMM 2010 – The Bridge from Neil Bufkin on Vimeo.

Laura Escudé’s Pororoca Pt 1: Production – Studio Equipment

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Laura Escudé’s Pororoca Pt 2: Ableton Tutorial: Instruments

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Laura Escudé’s Pororoca Pt. 3: Ableton Tutorial : Composing in Ableton

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Laura Escudé’s Pororoca Pt. 4: Logic Pro Tutorial: Finishing in Logic

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Laura Escudé’s Pororoca Pt. 5: Pororoca Music Video

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Don’t miss the latest remix releases by Hopkins. Here, he remixes Four Tet:

Angel Echoes (Jon Hopkins remix) by Four Tet

By Peter Kirn

On the eve of playing New York’s massive Electric Zoo festival this weekend, UK-based producer Jon Hopkins talked to me on Create Digital Music about how he works. If you don’t know Hopkins’ beautiful solo releases, his work features sparkling, cinematic textures that crescendo into pulsing tracks. His most successful recent hit, “Light Through the Veins,” begins with a simple, spare lead ostinato before washes of layered sound morph into a solid dance track.

But odds are, you’ve at least heard Hopkins’ music. Aside from numerous TV and film appearances, and a collaboration with Brian Eno on Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones, his music is spliced into Coldplay’s Light Through the Veins.

Given these luxurious sounds, it might surprise you to learn that Hopkins’ style is spare. His live rig:

Ableton Live, playing bare audio (everything from one-shots to longer, full stems, pulled from his studio albums)
Multichannel audio interface
Six Korg KAOSS Pads
MIDI keyboard for triggering and playing

Ambient legend Brian Eno himself got Hopkins addicted to the KAOSS Pad and the KP3. (The Dubspot crew more typically does work in the box inside Ableton, but our own DJ Kiva has been seen with them.)

In the studio, he still uses the instruments he first got comfortable with as a teenager (Hopkins is now 28). Aside from an acoustic piano – he was Classically trained – he gets many of his sounds from a Korg Trinity, on which he’s been gradually accumulating hundreds of custom patches since the age of 18. He does most of his actual sound design inside the Windows-only audio editor Sound Forge (now made by Sony), putting waveforms up on the screen and slicing and manipulating them into the desired materials. He’s recently upgraded to Logic from an old version of Cubase VST. But the real work happens largely at the waveform level, and with outboard processing via a beloved, dedicated box called the Eventide DSP 4000, not using lots of plug-ins. It’s an approach that recalls the analog tape methods of the pre-digital age.

What’s fundamental about this for Hopkins is finding a comfort level with his technology. As he says of the Korg Trinity, the only keyboard he’s ever used: “I don’t think it’s about what you use, it’s about how well you know it and how long you’ve been using it. And I know that machine ridiculously well. I’ve had it again since my first setup, when I was 18. And I’ve got a few hundred sounds that I’ve made over the years. Every synth sound on all three of my albums comes from that, with the exception of a couple of bass sounds from a Nord Lead that I’ve got as well. But it just gets enormously processed. I don’t use them as they are; I stick them into SoundForge and just mess them up, and go through a lot of processes.”

You can read the full interview with more gory details of his working method and film scoring at Create Digital Music.

Catch Hopkins with a fully live set Sunday afternoon at Electric Zoo. (Playing the same Red Bull Riverside Stage is The Glitch Mob, for a different approach – everything in Ableton Live but with lots of effects, multiple Lemur touchscreens instead of Korg hardware, and multiple laptop musicians.)

Four Tet, in turn, remixes Jon Hopkins:

Jon Hopkins – Vessel (Four Tet remix) by Four Tet

And from an upcoming 12″ release on Domino, English electronic maestro Nathan Fake (Border Community) remixes Jon Hopkins. (Got all that? Four Tet and Hopkins swap remixes, Fake remixes Hopkins.)

jon hopkins – wire (nathan fake remix) by nathan fake •official•

Dubspot
348 W 14th St.
New York, NY 10014
(212) 242-2100

Send RSVP to RSVP@dubspot.com
(put Ableton User Group New York in the subject line)
Join Dubspot Ableton User Group New York on Facebook

This session is built on the heels of last year’s very successful Dubspot Ableton Live 8 Tour, in which M-nus Records founder Rich Hawtin and  Ambivalent were engaged in a lively, inspiring discussion with topics ranging from  production and performance strategies to finding inspiration to offering invaluable advice for students.

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Ambivalent’s latest release Down is available September 1st on M-nus Records.  Peep the lovely artwork below.

Legendary independent hip hop record store Fat Beats is shutting down the doors to its New York (September 4th) and Los Angeles (September 18th) stores this week, with a celebration – a series of performances from vets, legends, pioneers, deejays and emcees paying tribute to the beloved spot known as “The Last Stop For Hip Hop!” The New York store, which is located at 406 6th Ave. bet. 8th & 9th St., will be graced with performances and appearances by DJ Premier, Pete Rock, Just Blaze, DJ Scratch, Bobbito, Tony Touch, Neil Armstrong, Da Beatminerz, Sadat X, Immortal Technique, Ras Kass, and A-Trak – just of a few of the names on schedule. Check the entire schedule below:

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DJ Shiftee Remembers Fat Beats

Fat Beats has always been a special place for me. During my teenage years, my friend Mike & I would take the train in from Westchester every weekend we could, specifically to go to Fat Beats. The ritual was: trek over to the store, cop the coolest and most obscure records we could find (I was personally always worried about buying stuff that the store clerks wouldn’t think was lame), and then top it off with a Grey’s Papaya hot dog special. We saw hip hop juggernauts like DJ Boo from the Juggernauts, Wordsworth, and Percee P (I bought his CD out front). I treated the whole place with a timid reverence, knowing I was at the epicenter of Hip Hop in its purest form.

Beyond this, Fat Beats holds a paramount position in my career as a DJ. Why? I didn’t own any records until I went to Fat Beats! Shortly after buying my first set of turntables (Bar Mitzvah money FTW), I traveled by car with my father into Manhattan to try to scope out some records. I knew what I wanted: Hip Hop, and not just any Hip Hop. I wanted underground/backpack Hip Hop, dirty lyrical boom bap Hip Hop, the kind of Hip Hop I listened to for hours on end in my suburban home. Neither of us had much of a clue where to go, so we roamed aimlessly into a shop that had some LPs on the wall. The presence of a long-haired, middle-aged clerk should have warned us, but this particular store only had vintage Rock records. Was I going to spend my years dropping Led Zeppelin tribute sets? Well, only time will tell. But! We asked the guy behind the counter where we could find some Hip Hop, and he sent us to Fat Beats.

Now, this is kind of like wandering the desert and all of a sudden receiving directions to a nearby water park. OR walking many days in ill-fitting high heels, and then suddenly looking down to see New Balances with Thorlos and Dr. Scholl’s on your feet. OR eating normal sandwiches your whole life, and then finally eating a sandwich made by me. It was mind-blowing. When we approached the store, I saw the Fat Beats sign atop the entry way leading to worn grey stairs, and the giant album covers up above in the windows. I darted up the steps with nervousness and excitement. I opened the door . . . and everywhere I looked . . . there were records. Records and records and records. A few I knew, most I didn’t. Neither did I recognize the infectious track playing over the speakers. However, I did know that I had indeed found what I was looking for.

I bought maybe 5 records, singles of each (I didn’t know beat juggling from circus juggling at this stage in the game). The only one whose title I remember is Fatlip’s “What’s up, Fatlip?” I also replaced my thick blue velvet slipmats from Sam Ash with crisp new white Fat Beats slipmats. Believe it or not, I actually still use the same slipmats today!

I got home and taped the Fat Beats shopping bag to my wall. I may have left without many records in hand, but I left knowing I’d be back many, many times to come!

Electric Zoo, New York’s Electronic Music Festival is coming this Labor Day weekend on September 4 & 5, 2010. Following the success of its kickoff year, Dubspot would like to give one lucky person a chance to win a pair of 2 day general admission passes to the event.

To enter this contest, simply leave a comment on our Facebook page: explain why you deserve to be at Electric Zoo this year, and we’ll pick the person with the best response. Good luck!

The hugely anticipated 2010 edition brings together the highest caliber artists from across the many sub-genres of electronic music to New York’s premier open air festival.  Festival headliners The Chemical Brothers and Armin van Buuren are joined by dance music legend Moby, Los Angeles beat mastermind Flying Lotus, UK dubstep superstar Rusko, West-Coast low-end champ Bassnectar, Los Angeles party-starters The Glitch Mob, and Berlin’s Boys Noize amongst over 70 others.

Update: We’ve chosen a winner!

********* Daniel Boychuk **********

Congratulations Daniel!  Also, for all those attending Electric Zoo check out this new post about Jon Hopkins who will be playing at the festival.

Full details:
Create Digital Music
Facebook RSVP
Culturefix Directions

Culturefix
9 Clinton Street (just below Houston)
New York, NY
7 – 10 PM

Equal parts science fair and music party, Handmade Music is a gathering where musicians and the musi-curious explore new sound worlds. Assembled from the growing, global grassroots DIY scene, makers and hackers present new inventions and technology. Instead of just consuming, these are the people making the code, instruments, and noise-making contraptions that make the music. They’re building a musical future that’s open, creative, and hackable. Inventors bring their new creations for an open show-and-tell, join performances and jams, and make much noise. Read More